Hamish X Goes to Providence Rhode Island (35 page)

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Green about the gills
is an expression meaning sickly or on the verge of vomiting. The expression comes from the Mediterranean Sea where one fish in particular, the Regurgitrix, is known to throw up when cornered, much as an octopus releases ink. The warning sign is when the Regurgitrix's gills turn a brilliant green. Fishermen know to throw the fish back when the gills turn green or receive a faceful of the fish's last meal. The Regurgatrix feeds exclusively on rotting vegetation and fish poop, so one really doesn't want to experience a shower of said material if one knows what is good for one.

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     As is usually the case in such junctures in a story, something did happen. Otherwise, there would have been many pages spent describing the shore of the lake, the rocks, the saltiness of the water, the darkness, Mr. Kipling's pants, etc. That would be very, very boring. How lucky for you, dear readers, that you will be spared such a boring passage by what happened next.

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     There is a tribe in the Central Andes who believe they can also think with their elbows, but there has been no clinical investigation of their claim. It is interesting to note that the funny bone is located in the elbow, which seems to indicate that the joint in question has its own quirky sense of humour.

¹⁰
   
Waxing
in this context means “growing.” It has nothing to do with wax. When someone says, “The waxing moon shone above,” they do not mean there will be wax raining down from the sky, nor is the moon made of wax. The moon is made of cheese. Everyone knows that.

¹¹
   
Tress
is another word for a lock of hair. The word
mattress
is derived from the word
tress,
as people used to sleep on bags full of hair. Not a lot of people … but still.

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Staves
is the plural form of
staff
. This is an exception to the rule for most “aff” words. For example, one doesn't call a group of giraffes “giraves.” That would be wrong. I don't know why … but it would be.

¹³
   This may seem like a ridiculous and inaccurate simile to the ignorant and uninitiated. However, few people have experienced the speed and agility of a truly irate donkey. When enraged, donkeys move with blinding speed. In Mexico, they are called Los Cheetahs del Sol (the Sun Cheetahs). One donkey, poked with a sharp stick, was recorded at a land speed of 155 kilometres per hour as it chased down the possessor of the stick and bit him on the ear. I won't be poking a donkey with a stick again any time soon.

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Unctuous
is an old word meaning unpleasantly suave, smug, or smooth or resembling or containing oil, fat, or grease. It comes from the common word
uncle,
and it's derived from the practice of taking uncles who were dishonest and packing them in greasy barrels until they learned to be more trustworthy.

¹⁵
   
Pedantic
is a word that means too concerned with rules. I had a pedantic finger once. It was so bossy I had to wear gloves so it wouldn't tell me what to do all the time.

¹⁶
   Claustrophobia is the fear of enclosed spaces, not, as is often assumed, the fear of Santa Claus. Although I would hate to be enclosed in a cramped space with Santa Claus, as he is quite obese and would take up that much more room, making any cramped space even more cramped. Granted, he is a charming person with many wonderful personality traits, but he does take up a lot of real estate. Not his fault that he is overweight. I hear it's a glandular disorder. Also, he would bore you to death with stories about reindeer veterinary issues. Or so I've been told.

¹⁷
   See Book II of Hamish X's adventures:
Hamish X and the Hollow Mountain
.

¹⁸
   
Thither
is quite a fun word, as is its companion,
hither
. It's quite fun to say. More fun, certainly, than saying here and there. Probably twice as much fun as saying hither and yon, although
yon
is quite a sweet little word. But I have spent too much time distracting your attention hither. Perhaps you should return to the main text, thither. (So much fun!)

¹⁹
   
Mustered,
not
mustard
. One is a verb meaning gathered or assembled. The other is delicious on a sandwich. If people are gathering on your sandwich, don't eat it.

²⁰
   Do you know what's wonderful, my dear readers? Small people like Parveen find it in themselves to be brave every single day, every place in the world. They carry on in the face of failure, loss, and hopelessness and so make the world a little better. Try it yourself sometime. But I digress.

²¹
   In fact, the Surgeon General of the United States released a report citing sudden movement as the number-one cause of serious injury and death in those having sharp objects held against their throats.

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   Why is there a young girl holding a knife to Hamish X's throat, you ask? Didn't you read the last book? I mean, really! It was the bit right at the end! The last thing you read! Oh, I suppose I should refresh your memory or else I'm never to hear the end of it. In a nutshell, Hamish X had left the Hollow Mountain to pursue his destiny, find Professor Magnus Ballantyne-Stewart, and learn the truth about himself. He stowed away on a rusty old freighter bound for Africa, where the Professor in question was last known to be located. Having stowed away onboard the ship, he settled down for a snooze in the cargo hold only to wake up and find a girl named Maggie holding a knife to his throat and announcing that she and her associates were going to take over the ship. So, that's the end of the refresher course. May I continue now? Fine.

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   Rats certainly have a bad reputation for being untrustworthy, a reputation that I for one doubt they really deserve. Have you ever been lied to by a rat? Have you ever been betrayed to your enemies by a rat? I sincerely doubt it. So let's try to refrain from bad-mouthing the rat population, shall we? Now mice, on the other hand, you can't trust as far as you can throw them, those dirty, lying mice!

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   A strange name for a ship, certainly, but typical of the names chosen by child-slavers throughout history. Child-slaver ship captains usually name their craft after something that will depress and demoralize children. Some examples of ships that have struck fear into the hearts of unwary children through the ages are
The Bath-Time, The Brussels Sprout, The Wedgie, The Bee Sting, The Haircut, The Moustached-Auntie-Who-Pinches-Your-Cheek-And-Has-A-Big-Hairy-Mole-And-Bad-Breath, The Big Brother's Fart,
and
The Wet Willie.
So,
Christmas Is Cancelled
might be considered mild by comparison.

²⁵
   An interesting phenomenon: children's hearing seems to fail when parents are telling them what to do. Studies have shown that when parents are dictating instructions concerning behaviour, comportment, manners, or safety regulations, the ability of the juvenile ear to discern sound and comprehend these instructions drops by an astonishing fifty-eight percent. New studies indicate that if parents wish their children to absorb and follow instructions, they should insert subliminal messages into their conversations. Dropping instructions into especially pleasing conversations is highly effective. For example: “Children, don't talk to strangers,” is seventy-two percent less likely to be absorbed than “Children, don't talk to
who would like a chocolate ice cream sandwich
strangers.”

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   Hamish X's reference to the slave market in Marrakesh is interesting. I have no solid information as to what he might have done there, but his adventures are too numerous for me to know about all of them. I can only do so much, you know! Perhaps he is referring to the mysterious Marrakesh Fire that consumed a cluster of warehouses and brought shipping to a standstill. The cause of the conflagration is still unknown.

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   Of course, Hamish X is referring to Captain Cheesebeard and Captain Soybeard (see Book I of Hamish X's adventures:
Hamish X and the Cheese Pirates
). It is true, sea captains, especially evil sea captains, tend to have quite ridiculous names, often associated with some distinguishing physical attribute; for example, Captain Hook, Blackbeard, Cheesebeard, etc. The interesting thing is that evil sea captains are required to register their nicknames with the Evil Sea Captains' Guild to avoid doubling up. There is nothing more confusing than having two Captain One-Eyes, but, that said, one wonders why the two Captain One-Eyes couldn't join forces and have two eyes in total. Sadly, evil sea captains are very argumentative and rarely manage to coordinate their efforts.

²⁸
   It may seem surprising to you that people as evil, nasty, and cruel as slavers might be afraid of the dark, but the truth is many villains are the victims of phobias and fears. According to a poll taken by the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center, thirty-five percent of evil people are afraid of the dark. A further twenty-seven percent of villains fear spiders, snakes, or crawling insects. Forty-two percent of nasties are chronic bedwetters, and a whopping seventy-two percent of evil villains think birds control the weather.

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   His real name was Curtis, but his crewmates called him Monkey-Knees because his knees, when clenched, resemble the faces of monkeys.

³⁰
   It must be pointed out that one of the side effects of being an evil henchman or lesser baddie is that one has a limited ability to grasp what is truly funny and what is completely inane. After years in the company of villains, one's sense of humour becomes stunted, mainly as a result of being required to laugh at whatever one's evil master says, even if it isn't particularly funny. One tends to lose perspective. Hence, knee puppetry and ventriloquism become extremely and disproportionately amusing.

³¹
   The superstructure of a ship is the section that rises above the decks. The bridge is located here as well as most of the areas vital to the functioning of the ship: the radio room, radar room, map room, and the ping-pong table. What? You don't think ping-pong is vital on a ship? Things can get pretty boring when one is out at sea. Sometimes ping-pong is a captain's last line of defence, the last option before discipline fails, mutiny reigns, and madness follows. The only thing that kept the crew on Magellan's circumnavigation voyage from going mad was the intense ping-pong tournament they kept going en route. Magellan was killed when he went over the side in the Philippines to retrieve the ball after a particularly hard smash.

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   Readers might wonder how Captain Ironbuttocks came to sport his iron buttocks. A fair question. There are many stories that claim to tell the tale. One says he lost the appendages when he was waterskiing in shark-infested waters near Curaçao. Another source insists they were shot off in a gunfight. Yet another declares that his ex-wife sold them while he was asleep. Colourful options all, but I have learned the truth. He fell asleep on a waffle iron and singed them off. Weird but true.

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   Not, strangely, gaves.

³⁴
   The origin of the term
loogie
is shrouded in mystery. As we all know, a loogie is a particularly nasty, snot-laden lump of spit. Some say it originated in the eighth century when Lord Loog of Snowdon held the first ever distance-spitting competition. Other scholars insist that the term is a descriptive one, likening the gob of spit and goo to the luge, a small, one-person sled. According to my sources, I believe
loogie
comes from a bizarre custom in medieval Scotland. On New Year's Day, the King would customarily spit out the window on his gathered courtiers. Whomever the spitty projectile happened to land on was appointed prime minister for the ensuing year. Therefore, it was considered a very lucky thing indeed to be spat on.
Lucky,
in medieval Scots dialect, was pronounced
looky
and over time became transmuted into the current form:
loogie.

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   The expression
Cat's got your tongue
originated in Portugal in the late sixteenth century. An ingenious burglar employed a group of very clever cats that would steal into people's homes and, using their tiny teeth, latch on to sleeping victims' tongues, preventing an alarm from being raised. The burglar would then rob the house at his leisure.

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Somersault
is a fun word.
Somer
comes from the Latin word
supra,
which means above, and
sault
comes from the Latin word
saltus,
which means jump. This is the accepted origin, but many believe it comes from the name of a man who lived in sixteenth-century London and stood on the wharves at Greenwich and jumped over large sacks of salt in a very entertaining way. His name was Harry Somers and his salt-leaping was a tourist attraction until he was killed by a rabid anchovy.

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   The anchovy is a family (Engraulidae) of small but common salty fish. They are found in scattered areas throughout the world's oceans. I think they are delicious, but that's really neither here nor there. Rarely do they get rabies, which is a disease that affects only mammals, but there's a first time for everything. Since anchovies travel in vast schools, an anchovy with rabies would quickly infest all of his fellows, leading to huge schools of rabid anchovies, terrorizing the seas. I shudder just thinking about it. Being bitten by a fish is bad, but being bitten by such a salty fish would really sting a lot. It would be literally rubbing salt in the wound, some might say.